Language

Mathematical anomalies don't prove anything

Submitted July 3, 2006 - 5:02 pm by Jules Siegel
They could be caused by rounding errors or other well-known statistical management problems. A total of 38,481,957 ballots have been counted so far. Very large numbers like that have internal patterns that resemble manipulation but are actually examples of randomness.

I know that this seems improbable, but there is a science of numerical forensics that deals with repetitive patterns in collected numbers. If they don't have these patterns, then suspicion is raised that the figures have been tampered with, because the people who did it will tend to cover their tracks by making the results look random.

It's really a fascinating area of study, but the results are often counter-intutive. Look into Benford's Law for an example of what I'm talking about. Everyone knew the race was going to be tight. It's annoying that it turned out this tight, but I don't think that's much evidence of fraud. Don't you think that anyone trying to mess with the results would have tried for a larger margin?

The election resulted in a statistical tie. That's not all that unusual an outcome. The only way to settle the doubts would be to hold a run-off, I guess. Meanwhile, people are clutching at wisps. Al is correct in one point -- 64% did not vote for Calderón. One has to ask whether the split in what was once the PRI brought Mexico democracy or a new kind of minority rule.

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

User login